What are the themes of expectations in the novel?

Pip wants to be a gentleman, he wants to know the identity of his benefactor, he expects that man to be a good, rich man (like the gentleman that Pip desires to be), he wants Estella (and because she is a "lady," to get her he knows he must first be a gentleman), and towards the end he wants to help Provis/Magwitch when Compeyson plots to kill him. All of these wants must be understood...

Pip wants to be a gentleman, he wants to know the identity of
his benefactor, he expects that man to be a good, rich man (like
the gentleman that Pip desires to be), he wants Estella (and
because she is a "lady," to get her he knows he must first be a
gentleman), and towards the end he wants to help Provis/Magwitch
when Compeyson plots to kill him. All of these wants must be
understood within the class structure of Victorian England. To the
Victorians, the word “expectations” meant legacy as well
as anticipations. In that closed society, one of the few means by
which a person born of the lower or lower-middle class could rise
to wealth and high status was through inheritance. A major theme of
the Victorian social novel involved a hero’s passage through the
class structure, and a major vehicle of that passage was money
bestowed upon him, acquired through marriage, or inherited. Unlike
many nineteenth century novels that rely upon the stale plot device
of a surprise legacy to enrich the fortunate protagonists,
Great Expectations probes deeply into the ethical and
psychological dangers of advancing through the class system by
means of wealth acquired from the toil of others. In wanting to
help his benefactor, a mere criminal, at the end of the novel, we
learn that Pip has grown into a more ethical person than he was at
the beginning.